Scattered Thoughts and Rogue Words is so happy to have Amy Lane back again, this time sharing “too quiet” kid stories on her ‘Manny Get Your Guy‘ tour. Welcome, Amy!

…too quiet… Part 3 by Amy Lane

So my last two posts in the tour have been “too quiet” kid stories—and seriously, most parents have a zillion of them. Somewhere in my archives I’ve got pictures of not one, but TWO little girls who thought it would be a laugh riot to get into mom’s makeup when they were bored. Squish’s picture has lipstick everywhere on her face. Chicken’s has mascara EVERYWHERE—right after her bath.Never turn your back on them—something will attack.

But in a bustling household, sometimes, you just can’t be everywhere at once. And sometimes, little things get overlooked.

Our cable service provider is Comcast. I know—this doesn’t SEEM like it has anything to do with childcare, but bear with me.Because in our neighborhood, we can have Comcast or Direct TV, and at one point in time—back when Squish was a baby and Zoomboy could fit in tiny places—we thought we were getting Direct TV.

The two bozos they sent to drill holes in our house and restring all our cables and generally screw up our entertainment system were not only not very bright—they were also not very FAST. They instilled maximum damage, but it took them nine hours of walking in and out of my relatively crowded, busy house in order to do it. And in the meantime, I had to make dinner and give baths and generally try to run my house while Mate said things like, “Do we HAVE to drill the hole?”

Anyway…

Around about hour seven, it got to be “too quiet.”

We were missing a kid.

Strange people had been going in and out of our house all day and WE WERE MISSING A KID.

MANHUNT!

Lock the dog in the bedroom, the big kids were looking under the bed, in the closets, behind the shoes, Squish was clung to, on somebody’s hip, as the whole family wandered our 1000 foot square house with increasing panic, screaming ZoomBoy’s name.

WE COULDN’T FIND ZOOMBOY!

The panic.

Seriously.

The panic.

Mate ran a circle around the block, and we couldn’t find him.

He ran the half-mile, larger circle.

Nothing.

I got into the car and turned on my brights and tooled around the neighborhood. Holy God, my kid was missing, I was going to have to call the police, I was going to have to issue an amber alert, I was going to have to…

Slow down as I was pulling into my driveway because he was running out of the house looking really pleased with himself.

“Mom! Mom! I hid between the coffee table and the couch and NOBODY FOUND ME!”

I almost smacked my child in the face.

“Were… uh… were we uh playing hide-and-seek?” I asked, spots floating in front of my eyes.

“No. I just thought I’d hide.”

“Uh, okay, hon. That was, uh, special. Maybe next time, tell somebody we’re playing that game? Mom was really worried.”

“Okay. Where’d you go?”

“TO FIND YOU!”

“But I was in the coffee table!”

“I know that now.”

“Are you okay?”

“I need to go cry on Dad now.”

“Can the guys go?”

“Yes.”

“Are they done?”

“I don’t care.”

“Good. They’re loud.”

So, yeah. Too quiet.

Also, a lesson in how no matter how hard you try as a parent, you never have it nailed down.

By the way—Direct TV? Didn’t work. We had no service for the first 48 hours and when we complained they told us we’d forfeit our deposit if we quit now.

We forfeited the deposit, fixed the hole in our wall, and never ever strayed from Comcast again.

And we made it a family rule that you could never, ever, ever start a game of hide-and-seek unless you told people that you were hiding first.

Yeesh… I have to admit, I feel bad giving Taylor four kids and chaos for this book. I mean, I survived it, but poor Taylor.

He’s not going to know what hit him.

It’s a good thing Brandon’s there to help.

Blurb

The Mannies

Starting over and falling in love.

Tino Robbins’s sister, Nica, and her husband, Jacob, are expecting their fifth child. Fortunately, Nica’s best friend, Taylor Cochran, is back in town, released from PT and in need of a job.

After years in the service and recovering from grave injury, Taylor has grown a lot from the callow troublemaker he’d been in high school. Now he’s hoping for a fresh start with Nica and her family.

Jacob’s cousin Brandon lives above the garage and thinks “Taylor the manny” is a bad idea. Taylor might be great at protecting civilians from a zombie apocalypse, but is he any good with kids?

Turns out Taylor’s a natural. As he tries to fit in, using common sense and dry wit, Brandon realizes that Taylor doesn’t just love their family—he’s desperate to be part of it. And just like that, Brandon wants Taylor to be part of his future.

Sequel to:

The Virgin Manny

Blurb:

The Mannies

Growing up and falling in love…

Sometimes family is a blessing and a curse. When Tino Robbins is roped into helping his sister deliver her premade Italian dinners when he should be studying for finals, he’s pretty sure it’s the latter! But one delivery might change everything.

Channing Lowell’s charmed life changes when his sister dies and leaves him her seven-year-old son. He’s committed to doing what’s best for Sammy… but he’s going to need a lot of help. When Tino lands on his porch, Channing is determined to recruit him to Team Sammy.

Tino plans to make his education count—even if that means avoiding a relationship—but as he falls harder and harder for his boss, he starts to wonder: Does he have to leave his newly forged family behind in order to live his promising tomorrow?

Tino Robbins’s sister, Nica, and her husband, Jacob, are expecting their fifth child. Fortunately, Nica’s best friend, Taylor Cochran, is back in town, released from PT and in need of a job.

After years in the service and recovering from grave injury, Taylor has grown a lot from the callow troublemaker he’d been in high school. Now he’s hoping for a fresh start with Nica and her family.

Jacob’s cousin Brandon lives above the garage and thinks “Taylor the manny” is a bad idea. Taylor might be great at protecting civilians from a zombie apocalypse, but is he any good with kids?

Turns out, Taylor’s a natural. As he tries to fit in, using common sense and dry wit, Brandon realizes that Taylor doesn’t just love their family—he’s desperate to be part of it. And just like that, Brandon wants Taylor to be part of his future.

Manny Get Your Guy (The Mannies #2) by Amy Lane is a sweet, heartwarming romance. I’m just in love with this series! The first, The Virgin Manny (The Mannies #1), with Channing Lowell and Tino Robbins gave us the foundation families and characters with Tino as the original Manny. It was a terrific story but I have to admit I loved this one better. Taylor Cochran was a shallow, sort of bad guy in that story. Here in Manny Get Your GuyTay gets his redemption, a new family, and a HEA love. Yep, I’m all behind that. That’s Tay on the cover with one of the Nica brood and it’s a perfect representation.

Taylor’s horrible upbringing, his deep friendship with Nica, his issues with his sexuality and his injuries while in the service are all brought up and inspected here. We see what made Taylor act the way he did in the first story and the growth he shows here. It’s an incredible range of character development and it works to not only bring the reader closer to Tay but also to make us see just how badly he needs the family slowly forming around him.

Brandon, with his snap judgements, actually was harder for me to like, funnily enough. It wasn’t until he got over them and decided that Taylor was ok with with children that I started to connect with Brandon as well.

The children here are a real plus! They are genuine, funny, and their interactions with Taylor made me laugh and sometimes cry. Amy Lane does this family thing so well, pulling at our hearts with so many elements in play, children, family, romance and more. It all works.

It also makes me wonder where the series will go next. Goodness knows Nica has enough children for 4 mannies. I can hardly wait for book three.

I highly recommend Manny Get Your Guy. Its heartwarming, tender, well-written and wonderful. That cover says it all.

Cover art by Paul Richmond. This has to be one of my favorite covers. As the most famous nanny in the world would say ” Practically Perfect in every way.”

Sometimes family is a blessing and a curse. When Tino Robbins is roped into helping his sister deliver premade dinners when he should be studying for finals, he’s pretty sure it’s the latter! But one delivery might change everything.

Channing Lowell’s charmed life changes when his sister dies and leaves him her seven-year-old son. He’s committed to doing what’s best for Sammy… but he’s going to need a lot of help. When Tino lands on his porch, Channing is determined to recruit him to Team Sammy.

Tino plans to make his education count—even if that means avoiding a relationship—but as he falls harder and harder for his boss, he starts to wonder: Does he have to leave his newly forged family behind in order live his promising tomorrow?

The Virgin Manny is full of those wonderful things I like to think of as Amy Lane layers. One, its those friends and families she memorably creates that orbit one or both of our main characters. We always want to get to know them more too. They are often as interesting, adorable, irascible (fill in the verb) and believable as our leading men. We often come to love them so much that it does them a disservice to call them secondary or support characters. Tino’s sister, his best friend, his mom, his dad….ala familia? Yes indeed turning into ours as well. Two, its not just one storyline. Yes, there’s a main one. But Lane weaves a tapestry of entertaining and emotional threads for the reader and characters to follow. It keeps both our hearts and minds involved as we wonder how Tino and Channing are going to handle a grief stricken child and their own evolving feelings for each other. Its a tricky situation, especially as its only supposed to be temporary. The possibilities for hurt are huge and the frailties of the child are acknowledged.

Tino also has his own issues and insecurities that he needs to work through. Channing too. How they maneuver through their maze of emotions, questions about the future of any relationship, status issues and still make their connection to each other seem real and sexy? True Amy Lane!

Do I heart this story? Yes, I do. And I loved Sammy, poor Sammy, lost, angry and grieving who has to learn to adjust and become a part of a new family. Well, I adored him.

There’s some suspense but its the love and family at the heart of this wonderful story that sings. I can’t recommend it enough. Plus its the start of a new series! Can’t wait for the next to appear. Pick it up if you haven’t already and be prepared to fall in love.

Cover art by Paul Richmond. Honestly? Not my idea of Tino. Its just ok.